Chaos Bleeds is a story based on the second Buffy computer game, written by Christopher Golden and Thomas J. Sniegoski. Buffy fans will recognize the telltale attributes of the Buffy universe in this book, written by James A. Moore.

Hands down, this book is the best gaming fiction I’ve read in a long time. Moore brilliantly use third person narration to accurately depict the Chaos Bleeds’ team of Xander, Willow, Spike, Anya, Faith and Buffy. While the combat was hard to follow due to the fast pace of the book, the material reads well. So well in fact, that you quickly lose yourself in the story.

Combat, blood and guts, the storyline for “Chaos Bleeds” has all the great elements of horror fiction. Surprisingly, this book is not for a younger audience as it has several, mature themes. The book centralizes on alternate realities and a character known as “The First.” Fans of the Buffy and Angel Universe will remember that “The First” is a seemingly indestructible entity described as “the first evil.” To Moore’s credit, Buffy and her team of champions encounter obstacles at the same rate they would in a regular episode of “Buffy.” Lots of fighting, lots of daemons, and lots of great Spike one-liners color the storyline as Buffy and her team members fight individually in a fight to the death. As enjoyable as it is to read the team fighting together, the individual battles are great to really get a feel for the characters and their well-developed psyches.

Save the day, kill the bad guy is not as easy as it normally looks in this 324 page novel. Fans of the Buffy universe will appreciate the care that Moore has taken to write the book in the context of the series. Details are added in for those not familiar with Buffy, so that anyone could pick up the novel for a fast, afternoon read.

Narrators of Buffy and Angel that enjoy watching their players squirm would be well-advised to pick up a copy of “Chaos Bleeds.” As we speak, I am chuckling just pondering the notion of writing a game based one of the many alternate realities set forth in “Chaos Bleeds.” In fact, there are so many scenes present in the book that one could easily run a game for two years playing two nights a week!

A fun read, Chaos Bleeds is great for fans of both the Buffy universe or the vampire mythos.

11 Tales of Ghostly Horror

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